


Interdisciplinary Studies

by boobuu



Series: Interdisciplinary Studies [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Graduate School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:22:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boobuu/pseuds/boobuu
Summary: Goody heads outside, shivers a little with the cold of it and draws his jacket in closer. The noise from the bar dims as the door shuts, and that’s when he sees he’s got company. One of the new guys that showed up tonight. Asian, which is a little unusual, and quiet, which is pretty standard. Most people don’t talk much until they’ve come to a few meetings or unless they’re close to fluent already, and Goody would bet money that this guy was having trouble grasping the basic gist of things. Curious.Goody digs out a cigarette from his pocket, grins out a hello in the quick flare of the lighter. “Didn’t catch your name in there, sorry—I’m Goody.”





	1. French as a Fourth Language

**Author's Note:**

> The [grad student AU](http://megajubbly.tumblr.com/post/153170251647/interdisciplinary-studies) that absolutely no one asked for. This was meant to be short and stupid, something to play with in between past the setting sun, but it ended up being long and stupid instead.

Goody heads outside, shivers a little with the cold of it and draws his jacket in closer. The noise from the bar dims as the door shuts, and that’s when he sees he’s got company. One of the new guys that showed up tonight. Asian, which is a little unusual, and quiet, which is pretty standard. Most people don’t talk much until they’ve come to a few meetings or unless they’re close to fluent already, and Goody would bet money that this guy was having trouble grasping the basic gist of things. Curious.

Goody digs out a cigarette from his pocket, grins out a hello in the quick flare of the lighter. “Didn’t catch your name in there, sorry—I’m Goody.”

The guy frowns a little. “I thought we were only supposed to speak in French.”

“Well,” Goody smiles, “we’re not in the bar anymore, are we? Also, I’m guessing a conversation in French would be pretty one-sided, given—“

“How I don’t understand much of it?”

Goody laughs: “C’est toi qui l’as dit, pas moi.”

The guy flashes a quick smile, looks up at Goody through his lashes as he flicks his cigarette, giving Goody just enough time to think: _oh, shit_. “My department has a language requirement. I knew they wouldn’t take Korean, but some take Chinese. Not this one.”

“And what, you figure you’d just teach yourself French on the fly?”

“Well,” he says, deadpan, “it has to be easier than English and Chinese. At least I don’t have to learn an entirely new writing system, this time.”

“Sure enough,” he allows, flashing his hands up in deference, “and how is that going for you?”

The guy furrows his brow, and then says, a little ruefully: “Comme ci, comme ça.”

Goody laughs again as the guy shrugs his shoulders and sighs, international sign language for: _yeah, I_ do _realize I’m fucked, thanks_.

“What is this, then,” Goody asks, gesturing with his hands, “immersion? You listen to enough drunk shit talking and flirting in French, slowly wander your way towards fluency? I gotta say, that’ll probably only work for very specific fields of study.”

“I gathered. I wanted to see if anyone had a more technical background. Someone who could help me with vocabulary.”

“Technical, like engineering?”

“No,” the guy says, frowning a little, “mathematics.”

And Goody already knows this is a terrible idea before he can even open his mouth, but historically he’s proven to be weak to beautiful people, and this guy certainly counts. “I’m not STEM or anything, but I’m getting my degree in Philosophy, which is sort of the same.” Tries on his most charming smile: “We can talk about logic.”

The guy laughs at that, throws his head back a little and crinkles his eyes in a way that makes Goody’s stomach jump around and applaud him for his boldness. He puts his number in Goody’s phone, tells him to get in touch.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, William Yoon,” Goody says, tapping out a quick message in response.

He looks up in time to see the guy smile: “It’s Billy.”

———

The next day, slightly hungover and semi-rumpled from crawling out of bed well into the pm hours, Goody only manages to carry on the fiction of doing research online for a little while before he caves and clicks open a new tab for Facebook. Goody tries both William and Billy, but they come back with too many hits; too many people with the same name. He clicks through to another wrong profile, and curses under his breath, which seems to pique his housemate’s attention.

Joshua leans in over his shoulder, disregarding concepts like privacy and mutually ignoring the casual Facebook stalking of a random stranger, which a decent person would do. Unfortunately, Goody lives with Joshua, who is decidedly not one of those. “Did you try looking up his email address through the school directory?”

Goody stares back at him, incredulous.

“If his name’s too common, the only way you’re gonna find him is if you get more specific with your search. If his email’s linked to his Facebook profile, you can use that to track down the right guy.” Joshua nods authoritatively.

“How do you even—“ Goody begins, before realizing, too late, that he doesn’t particularly care to know.

“S’how I found that hot Chinese chick in Torts. The internet is a beautiful thing,” Joshua smirks, loping off to the kitchen, probably to pick through all of Goody’s leftovers.

Goody digs the palm of his hands into his eyes, wondering if he’s far enough along to take Joshua’s advice.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” Joshua yells. “If you’re gonna hunt this guy down, you need to commit to actually trying to fuck him instead of just stalking him online like a creep. You really need to get laid.”

Goody closes his computer. Christ. Texting has to be good enough.

———

They meet for coffee, and it goes well enough that it becomes a regular thing—sitting on the patio of a coffee shop outside of the main undergrad strip while the weather’s still nice, laughing at Billy’s terrible French (“Your accent is truly atrocious, mon pote.” “I’m sure your Chinese is worse.”), and torturing himself with whether or not any of this counts as dating.

“I don’t know whether he’s single, much less whether he’s into guys,” he complains.

“Hmm,” Sam responds noncommittally, as he grades another student paper, “I know that office hours are meant for students with questions, but seeing as how you’re not _my_ student anymore, I reckon I’d be well within my rights to kick you out, unless you start having questions about the Antebellum period.” At that, Sam looks up at him over his glasses, one eyebrow raised pointedly.

Goody ignores him: everyone knows students never show up to office hours this early in the semester. But he thinks back, rifling through his memory, and tries: “‘I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.’”

Sam laughs a little, despite himself, and Goody grins back, pleased. Transcendentalism’s not as interesting a conversation topic as Billy, but it’s good to get into it with Sam every now and then. Like they’re both back in Boston again, and the realization that some things don’t change is comforting: be it five years back or ten years into the future, he’ll always be able to march into Sam’s office and monopolize a bit of his time.

They don’t get back onto the subject of Goody’s potentially non-existent love life until he makes to leave, on his way to the library to contemplate maybe doing some work.

“You always make things harder than they have to be, Goody,” Sam says, in lieu of a farewell.

Goody half-grins at that, shrugs his shoulders helplessly. Guilty as charged.

———

It all comes to a head at Halloween.

He’s at the bar waiting to order a drink, already a little loose from pre-gaming at the house with Joshua, who insisted on coming along despite it being a Lamda Grad party (“Look, gay guys love me and I’m secure enough in my masculinity to accept their free drinks.”)

Joshua thumps him from behind, and he turns around, annoyed. But then Joshua points Billy out across the room, chatting with two other guys who are, horrifically, both very attractive. Goody can’t quite parse if he’s elated or devastated by the revelation that Billy might actually be attracted to men, and he figures that’s partially the alcohol and partially his own tendency to self-sabotage.

“What the fuck,” Joshua grumbles, “it’s like some international Vogue shit, or something.” Then he’s shoving a shot into Goody’s hand and wishing him luck before he disappears to get up to who knows what sort of mischief.

Goody grimaces at the taste of tequila, orders a double whiskey, neat, to cleanse his palate. Clutches at the glass a little and tells the bartender to keep his tab open. _Any time now, Robicheaux_ , he thinks. _Any time_. He finishes his drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> C’est toi qui l’as dit, pas moi--You said it, not me.  
> Comme ci, comme ça--So-so.  
> Mon pote--My friend.
> 
> Goody quotes Henry David Thoreau's "Walden." Sam is a Civil War Era history professor, and met Goody when he was the TA of a course that Goody took his sophomore year. Thoreau is a major figure in Transcendentalism, an early 1800s philosophical movement. So basically Goody's still trying to impress Sam--no small coincidence that Goody ended up following Sam to the school that hired him on as a professor. (I spend way too much time sweating absurdly small details.)


	2. Politics of Human Sexuality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He gets a text from "Goodnight Robicheaux," stares at his phone a little before he places the name: the guy from the French conversation group. Goodnight--Goody, he remembers--asks if he has time for coffee this week. "There's a place off of Walnut that does a great pour over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god I have way more qpoc feelings than I initially anticipated, although in hindsight, I should've expected as much.

He gets a text from "Goodnight Robicheaux," stares at his phone a little before he places the name: the guy from the French conversation group. Goodnight--Goody, he remembers--asks if he has time for coffee this week. "There's a place off of Walnut that does a great pour over."

Billy thinks through his schedule, pulls open Hangouts and asks, "when are you lifting this week?"

Red responds, "Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. You coming?"

"yeah," he types out, "i'm in."

He texts Goody: "Wednesday, 2:30?"

"Ça marche," he gets back. "À mecredi." He runs the text through Google translate and tries to remember how much more money he got for coming here, instead of a more civilized program that would've accepted Chinese. Thinks, sullenly, of how much nicer the weather in California would be.

It is going to be a long few years.

———

They meet up with Manuel for dinner after the gym on Thursday. He bickers with Red a little about the comparative difficulty of their respective psets until Manuel cuts them off, sick of their “science talk” already.

“Math isn’t a science,” Red insists, as Manuel rolls his eyes.

“A nadie le importa qué piensas,” he grumbles under his breath. “No, go on, please talk more about how physics is so much better, this is even more interesting the twentieth time around.”

Red narrows his eyes at that, but anything he has to say in response is cut off by the server coming to take their order. Afterwards, Manuel successfully turns the conversation around to the guy he took home last Friday, and Billy makes thoughtful noises at all the right times until he realizes he might actually have something to contribute.

“I think I went on a date yesterday.”

“What do you mean, you think?” Manuel asks, suspicious.

Red looks at him thoughtfully. “Does the other person not know you’re dating? Or are you not sure?”

“Hm,” he considers, thinking over yesterday afternoon, “maybe both.”

Manuel chuckles a little. “Well, let us know when you’ve made up your mind. Is he cute, at least?”

Billy smiles: “Yes.”

———

He’s fiddling with his phone outside, waiting for Red to come back with their coffees, when he realizes it’s taken longer than it should have. He looks across the way and sees Red staring blankly as some guy crowds into his space, face red with anger. Billy grabs his bag and walks over, catches enough of the one-sided conversation to get the gist of things: Red has his hair done in neat braids falling over his shoulders today, and that’s apparently enough for him to get called a faggot.

Billy slips over to Red’s side, slides an arm around his shoulder and calls him honey. Red looks at him, confused but willing to see where Billy’s going with it, and Billy smiles and continues to ignore the other man until he’s the one getting screamed at. Billy baits the guy into throwing a punch, and it ends quickly from there, with the guy clutching his broken nose on the ground.

He puts his hand on the small of Red’s back, hustles him away from the scene and the handful of shocked spectators.

“Are you going to get in trouble for that?”

“Why? It’s not like anyone cared what was going on before I punched him in the face.” Red raises an eyebrow at that, and Billy relents. “Someone like that isn’t going to admit that they got beat up by someone like me. And it happened too quickly for anything to be caught on video.”

Red mulls that over a bit. Says, frowning: “I was handling things by myself”.

“I know. But isn’t that the point of having friends?” Billy asks. “So you don’t have to.”

Red hums thoughtfully at that, handing over Billy’s coffee. “In that case, thank you.”

———

Goody finishes up an improbable story involving three teddy bears and an enormous amount of alcohol, and asks Billy how his weekend went after he finishes insisting that everything he said really happened (“Law students,” he says, darkly, as if that explains anything).

“I punched someone in the face.” It’s not something he would normally bring up, but there’s something about Goody that draws out stories that he’d otherwise keep buried. He likes seeing Goody react to things he lets slip, how pleased he gets.

“Did he deserve it?”

“Of course.” Billy smirks, a little. “Everyone I’ve punched has.”

“More’n one?” Goody drawls, delighted. “Well, well, William Yoon, are you telling me you used to be something of a wild child?”

“Reformed, for the most part,” Billy says. “My life is very boring now. Mostly I just hang out with friends. There’s usually less punching involved.”

“So what was different this time?”

Billy shrugs. “Someone was bothering my friend.”

“Must be a pretty good friend,” Goody says, a little cautiously.

“Yes, more like a brother,” he says, and smiles on the inside when Goody relaxes at that.

He tries to explain what a dongsaeng is, and then they start talking about how Red can be both his sunbae and his dongsaeng at once, how family can be something more than just blood depending on the language. Billy explains banmal, and when Goody makes the comparison to tu and vous, Billy remembers that first night and how Goody used tu automatically with him. Maybe that should be a little insulting, but Billy finds that he doesn’t mind.

They figure out they share the same birth year. That sounds right to him.

———

Billy scrubs his hand over his face, and digs out a cigarette from his pocket. It’s 1 am and he’s not near being done with work for today. Manuel steals one with a tired grin and he lights them both up. They sit crouched on the steps in front of the library as Red peers down at them from his perch on one of the stone lions erected on the sides.

“That’s disgusting,” he tries, and then, “you’re going to make the study room smell awful.”

Billy can feel Manuel laugh silently next to him, shoulders shaking a little. Billy hides his own grin behind his hand, and Red huffs loudly, turns away to lay down across the lion’s back and studiously ignore them both. The silence is loud and pointed, and almost entirely drowned out by Manuel’s soft laughter.

Manuel presses into his side, asks how the not-dating is going.

“Good, I think.”

“You _think_.” Manuel snorts. “What are we going to do with you?”

———

They're hanging out at Billy's place, halfheartedly pretending to do work, when Manuel asks if he wants to see Moonlight with them on Friday.

"You know I don't like movies much. If you're going out afterwards, let me know and I'll join you."

Manuel frowns, tries again: "This is different. It has fantastic reviews, it's about gay men of color, it's important."

Red looks up slowly from his book, watching them both. Billy hesitates, says quietly, "I'll pass. "

"Do you have any idea what a movie like this means for men like us?"

"In Korea," he tries, "things are different, it's less of an--"

Manuel cuts him off, furious. "You think I don't know how things are different? You think, maybe, that that’s the whole fucking point of a movie like this?"

Billy thinks, but does not say: _You’re still_ American, _you don’t know how things are different, not like that_. Billy thinks a lot of things that he never says out loud, but this time Manuel gets tired of waiting in the wake of Billy’s silence and storms out, instead. Red gathers up his things, shoots a significant look at Billy and goes after him.

Billy closes his eyes for a long moment in his empty apartment.

———

Billy texts Manuel the next day: “how was the movie?”

He doesn’t get an answer. 

———

Billy texts Goody instead: “hey”

“Quoi de neuf?”

“are you free tomorrow for coffee?”

“Yeah, sure. Whenever you want.”

Billy goes to sleep early, wakes up early, has coffee with Goody and hardly says a word. Goody looks concerned, but doesn’t ask any questions. Billy’s grateful.

Goody launches into a series of stories from college, one more outrageous than the next, and Billy loses himself in the sound of it all for a little while.

———

When he gets home, he checks his phone and sees a message from Red: “He’s really upset.”

———

On Sunday, Billy methodically goes through library after library, top to bottom. Red finally gets back to him after he finishes his third most likely option. _Aish_ , he thinks darkly, _that stubborn idiot_. He reconfigures his plans, catches the bus to his ninth most likely option, and starts all over again.

He finally catches sight of Manuel on the second floor of the Architecture library. Manuel spots him as he marches over, and they both glare at each other for a solid minute, at an impasse. Finally, Manuel jerks his head to the side, picks up his things, and stalks over to an open study room.

Billy closes the door behind him, clenches his jaw as Manuel stares at him, arms crossed, leaning against the side of the table. When nothing happens, Manuel tosses his head and frowns, eyes dark and unhappy, as if to say: _Well? Get on with it._

He thinks: I left Korea when I was a child. I lived by myself in a big apartment and there was no one to ask what it meant when other children called me a chink and a faggot. I learned those words myself. I don’t remember what it’s like to feel at home in Seoul anymore. 

He says: “I spent a lot of time by myself when I first came here. It was hard. I’m not good at being in groups. I’m not good at being with other people like me.” He shuts his eyes. “I used to spend a lot of time not wanting to be me at all.”

He opens his eyes, and Manuel’s standing in front of him, eyes still dark but more sad than anything. He bristles a little at the emotion, and Manuel shakes his head.

“Like I said—you think I don’t know how it feels? Maybe not exactly the same, but it’s similar.” Manuel squeezes his shoulder. “We have to stick together, you know?"

And then, wryly: "It’s a good thing you’re so pretty, since you’re such a pain in the ass otherwise.”

Billy raises an eyebrow and Manuel quirks a smile. “Let’s get out of here. The carpet smell is making me sneeze. You’re buying coffee.”

———

The next day, Manuel ends up marching them to the theater, using Billy’s credit card to pay for three tickets. After the credits roll, he stares expectantly at Billy, but Billy’s just grateful that he managed to stay awake for the whole thing.

“What did you think?”

“It was okay,” Billy tries.

Manuel rolls his eyes. “Pinche idiota. I really pity you, you know? You have no soul.”

“I’m pretty sure they screen for that in the math department,” Red says, deadpan, scrolling through his phone. Manuel barks out a laugh, falling into a steady rhythm of mocking disappointment at Billy’s lack of culture that Red chimes in on occasionally, smirking slightly in between text messages.

Billy’s never been so relieved in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Ça marche--That works.  
> À mecredi--See you Wednesday.  
> A nadie le importa qué piensas--Nobody cares what you think.  
> Dongsaeng (동생)--Sort of like little brother, used for friends as well.  
> Sunbae (선배)--Someone senior to you at work or school.  
> Banmal (반말)--Casual/informal politeness level of speech.  
> Tu/vous--Casual you/formal you.  
> Quoi de neuf?--What's up?  
> Aish (아이씨)--A mad/exasperated exclamation.  
> Pinche idiota--Fucking idiot.
> 
> I'm not fluent in any of these languages, so please let me know if anything's wrong!
> 
> A note on the importance of birth years--Korean's much more strict about politeness levels in speech than French, where the use of "tu," even for a stranger, would probably be okay in a casual setting amongst people your age. One quick way to segue into using banmal is if you're the same age, so birth years can be important.
> 
> I ended up having a long discussion with friends over the appropriate use of tu/vous and tú/usted in French and Spanish, and what would be appropriate to use in the context where Goody meets Billy, and I thought it'd be fun to put some of that into the story somehow. Really this is devolving into more "flirting through language learning" than the "flirting through formal logic" that was promised.
> 
> Background character notes: Red is ahead of Billy in his program, despite being younger, some combination of Red being younger than average and Billy getting a Master's degree beforehand. Hopefully it is clear that Manuel is Vasquez. All of them are gay, I am super invested in this qpoc friend group. (Billy and Manuel have independently decided that they are much better as friends, but they have definitely hooked up at least once in the meantime.)


	3. Introduction to Group Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything’s a little too loud, a little too close, and Goody’s too busy marinating in whiskey and regrets to tamp down on the sour twist of panic that rises with the music playing on the dance floor. He bums a cigarette from someone at the bar, tries to find his breath outside, counting the spaces between his heartbeats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY sorry, also now the rating has changed

Everything’s a little too loud, a little too close, and Goody’s too busy marinating in whiskey and regrets to tamp down on the sour twist of panic that rises with the music playing on the dance floor. He bums a cigarette from someone at the bar, tries to find his breath outside, counting the spaces between his heartbeats.

 _Get a grip, Robicheaux_ , he tells himself furiously, but then his mind flits unbidden to the seat that Billy had abandoned, to the guys Billy had been smiling at—to all of the chances he had to go over and say hello, but didn’t. His hands shake, only barely, as he flicks open the lighter and he breathes out the first puff of smoke, grimacing. It’s a menthol. Figures.

Goody doesn’t turn around when the door opens behind him, otherwise preoccupied with berating himself, but he hears the soft “oh” that accompanies it and follows the sound to find Billy at the source, grinning the same grin he’s been watching all night from across the bar. “Goody,” Billy says, smiling, “I didn’t know you were here.”

He cracks a rueful grin at that, digging the palm of his hands into his eyes as Billy pulls out his own pack of cigs. “Sounds like you weren’t looking hard enough, Billy, I’m hardly a shrinking violet.” It’s a poor joke, too true by half in the moment, but before he can dig out a smirk to render his comment charmingly ironic, Billy stops him.

“A flower?” Billy asks, brow furrowed. And suddenly he’s on solid ground again: language, right. He can do this.

“A wallflower, a creeping vine, a clematis, a honeysuckle: ‘Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.’” Goody smiles now, finding it easy, in the light of Billy’s amused patience. “Another name for an introvert, someone with a shy and retiring temperament.” Goody can almost see Billy stash that information away, putting it in the same place he puts the French slang he insists on teaching him, the Louisiana Creole variants that he throws in sometimes without prior warning or notice, just to see if Billy’s paying attention, if he can tell the difference. 

“Doesn’t sound much like you.”

“Ouais,” Goody laughs, “entre nous, c’est toi qui ressembles à une belle fleur.”

There’s a flare of comprehension in Billy’s eyes at that, and Goody looks away, fiddling with the remnants of his cigarette. “Quick learner,” he says.

“This will be my fourth language, Goody,” Billy responds, just a touch haughty, and Goody grins at that, imagining a younger Billy, all arrogant and self-possessed, methodically picking up English just because no one expected him to be good at it. He knows there’s a gap between the two, a confidence that this Billy had to claw out for himself, but he’d bet money that, even as a child, Billy still had that same ornery tilt to his mouth. 

And it’s the knowing that does him in, finally, the hours of smoking and talking about his grandmother’s garden, about Billy learning to ask for gochujang at Chinese markets in small town Indiana. He’s been working himself up something awful all night, grinding away at the thought that maybe Billy wasn’t looking for him, looking _at_ him in the same way. But here Billy is, sidled next to him and listening to him quote Whitman. Goody takes a moment to wonder whether that’s really the most fortuitous beginning, if it’s too on the nose, but he figures Billy will forgive him if he waits until later to explain its significance.

“Smart and beautiful,” he says, leaning heavy on his drawl. Billy huffs out a laugh, half-flattered and half-amused, and he tilts in sweetly when Goody sets his hand around Billy’s neck and pulls him in slow for a kiss. Goody brings both hands to Billy’s face, strokes his jawline, steady as anything, and does it again when Billy shudders into it. Billy’s all teeth, pushy nips that turn into hard kisses that make Goody whine. Goody’s skimming a hand against the seam of Billy’s pants when the door to the bar opens, and a few would-be smokers start hooting and cheering. The door closes again on a few particularly explicit well wishes, and they’re left staring at each other in the dark.

“Do you want to go—“

“My place,” Billy says, insistent. “I don’t have roommates.”

Goody smiles. “Lead the way, Billy.”

———

It’s a quiet, if fast-paced, walk back to Billy’s apartment, but after Billy texts his friends to let them know he’s leaving, he takes Goody by the hand, and that’s enough to reassure Goody that Billy wants this.

Once they get into his place, Goody only has enough time for a quick glance around—clean, almost spartan—before Billy pulls him in by the belt loops for another kiss. He can feel himself flush from the alcohol, the nearness of Billy’s skin. Billy’s hair’s come loose somewhere along the way, soft tendrils of it framing his face, making it softer. Goody brushes some of it back, tucks it behind Billy’s ear, and feels Billy’s slow exhale along his arm.

“You gonna give me the grand tour, sweetheart?”

Billy responds, dryly: “Bathroom’s that way. Here’s the bedroom. All you need to know.”

Goody’s still laughing as Billy shows him to the bed, sprawls out and complains about Billy’s lack of hospitality. Billy raises an eyebrow at that, reaching down to unbuckle Goody’s belt, and Goody’s quick to reassure him he’s quite a fine host after all. If Billy doesn’t quite muffle a laugh as he pulls down Goody’s pants the rest of the way, well, Goody’s sure he can ignore that slight in light of everything else that’s happening.

He’s about to ask if Billy has anything when he reaches into his back pocket for a condom. There’s a burst of not-quite jealousy that quickly dissipates as Billy palms his cock with one hand and rips the packaging open with his teeth. He sucks in a loud breath when Billy slips it over the tip and uses his mouth to slide it the rest of the way down in one slow glide. There’s a smirk in Billy’s eyes when he looks down at him, too pleased by half, and his breath comes gusting out in long, low moans.

Goody loses a few moments as Billy settles into a rhythm between his mouth and his hands, whines when Billy sinks down again, pausing for a breath or two. Goody grits his teeth, strokes Billy’s hair, tries to keep himself from whiting out, from saying something too embarrassing. Billy pulls up and stops, takes Goody’s hands in his own, digs them into his hair. “I don’t mind,” Billy says, answering the question Goody’s struggling to ask, “I like it.”

So Goody pulls Billy’s hair loose, pulls back with both his hands, grip steady as he cradles the back of Billy’s head, and Billy just—sighs into it, eyes closed. And Goody’s careful, he’s cautious, but Billy moans and it’s like he can feel it down the length of his body, thrusting up for more of it. Before he can think twice, Billy’s chasing the movement with his hands, running his nails down Goody’s sides and swallowing, nuzzling down for more even as Goody holds him back by his hair. He comes like that, gasping, eyes closed, and the first thing he thinks as he’s petting Billy’s face in the aftermath is that he should keep his eyes open next time.

Billy ties the condom off, throws it away in a trashcan near the door and then lounges on the bed next to Goody. There’s a stiffness in his movements that Goody doesn’t like, and Goody runs his hand down the inside of Billy’s thigh, feeling the drag of his jeans against his palm. “You’re wearing far too much clothing for this,” Goody murmurs, shifting up to join him against the headboard, “let me help you with that.” He waits until Billy smiles back at him to flick open his pants, pull him out of his jeans. He takes a cue from Billy’s kisses, presses bites up and down Billy’s neck, doesn’t hold himself back. Billy’s quiet, just a few shaky breathes on the upswings, but he can feel Billy’s heartbeat race as he worries at the soft skin of his throat. Goody licks at his palm, gets it all wet, and Billy lolls his head back at that, lets Goody put his mouth and his hands over him. Goody jacks him off until he spills over his half-unbuttoned shirt, kissing him through it, slow and sweet now.

———

Billy shifts a little, squinting into the darkness, and the shuffling noises come to an abrupt halt. It’s too early on a Sunday to be awake just yet, and he waits less than patiently for some sort of explanation.

“Ah, Billy, I’m sorry I woke you, I—“ Goody pauses on the side of the bed, drags a hand through his hair. “Couldn’t sleep. I’ll leave now, let you get some rest.”

“What?” he says, annoyed. “Stay.”

Goody starts to say something, but it’s too early for all that talking, which Billy tells him. “You don’t have to come back to sleep, but I’d like you to stay.” He wants to say: I don’t do this very much anymore, but I’d like to, with you. And maybe his ability to translate thought to speech is more relaxed when he’s half-asleep, because even if he doesn’t say it out loud, Goody seems to get the gist of it, calming down enough to look him in the eye. “I have books in the living room. You could read one.”

“Any chance you have something I’d be able to understand?”

“You’ll just have to see.”

Goody cracks a smile at that, says: “Okay then, Bill. I’ll be here when you wake up.” Billy listens to him shuffle around the living room, satisfies himself that Goody isn’t going to leave when he doesn’t hear the front door latch.

He wakes up in a few hours to the smell of coffee, wanders out to find Goody surrounded by books cracked open to random pages. “I’m shit at cooking,” Goody says, “but let me take you out to breakfast.”

“Yes,” he says, thinking a little, “j’aimerais ça.”

He laughs when Goody sighs at his pronunciation and leans down for a kiss. Goody catches him as he pulls back, running his knuckles over his neck. “You have something there,” Goody says softly, and presses in to mouth at his jawline.

Goody ends up taking him to lunch, instead. While Goody’s in the bathroom, Billy thumbs through his messages, replies to the group text: “dinner tomorrow?” And then, because he’s not nearly as cruel or deliberately vague as Manuel complains that he is, he follows it with: “went well, still with him. more dating than not.”

Billy catches Goody's eye as he walks back to their table, watches Goody smile at him, face alight. _More dating than not_ , he thinks, sounds about right to him.

When they leave the restaurant, he has two dozen new texts. He keeps the phone on silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouais--Yeah  
> Entre nous, c’est toi qui ressembles à une belle fleur--Between us, you're more like a beautiful flower.  
> J’aimerais ça--I'd like that.
> 
> And that's it, for now, although I'd like to swing back at some point and explore more with Manuel, specifically. Thank you for reading and being patient with me!


End file.
